


The Worth of a Man

by stardropdream



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 06:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are things still left unsaid. Even after Kurogane has awoken, he and Fay must come to grips with their new reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Worth of a Man

**Author's Note:**

> Post chapter 165, written directly after 165 and wasn't post before bcause I felt that there was something "off" about Fay. I still feel that way, admittedly.
> 
> Originally posted on LJ April 26, 2008.

Kurogane didn’t even notice when Tomoyo slipped out. If Fay noticed, he showed no sign. He simply watched the one-armed ninja. If it were anyone else, Kurogane would have been seriously freaked out. A small part of him was screaming that he should be worried, but he squashed it down, idly rubbing the side of his head where Fay’d sent a mean left hook. 

They stared at each other, until Fay seemed to grow tired of standing and fell beside Kurogane on the futon—a respectable amount of distance, not too far away and not too close. Kurogane watched as he breathed. In and out. In and out. 

The silence was deafening. Kurogane usually didn’t mind the silence. He so rarely spoke himself, and words were often unnecessary and a waste of time. And he’d grown used to Fay’s silence over the last few months—ever since Tokyo. But somehow he wanted him to speak now. His shoulder throbbed idly in time with his beginnings of a headache. 

“You’re… you’re really stupid,” Fay finally managed to wheeze out. 

Kurogane supposed he’d say something like that. His head hurt too much to really look too much into the mage’s expression. He looked away, towards the wall. It was then that he realized Tomoyo was gone. He wondered how long she’d stayed and why he hadn’t felt her leave—he could always tell where she was, after all. Usually she couldn’t move an inch without him noticing. He blamed it on distractions—his arm, his head, his—

“Maybe,” he finally said, halting his thoughts. 

“You’re really stupid,” Fay repeated, with such deadly certainty. He turned towards Kurogane and just stared. Waited for Kurogane to turn back and meet his gaze. 

Finally, Kurogane relented and they stared at each other again. It was awkward. Tense. Kurogane didn’t know what to say. 

He watched Fay breathe. In and out. In and out. 

Fay shifted and it looked as if he were about to reach out and touch him, but he hesitated, even now. His fingers twitched on the soft linens but did not move. Kurogane watched his fingers curl, watched the knuckles turn white, before releasing and returning to normal, just gently gripping the sheets. He saw the shoulders tense and the elbows bend. He saw the in and out, in and out of his chest. 

He shifted. Kurogane’s shoulder throbbed. 

“Really stupid,” Fay repeated. 

“Quit saying that,” Kurogane muttered, staring at Fay, staring at that wide blue eye. 

“But what if I think it’s true?”

“Then you’re stupid, too,” Kurogane decided tensely, shifting his gaze to look around the room. The nicknames had returned, but there was still a strange tension in the air that Kurogane wasn’t comfortable with. 

“I just don’t… understand,” Fay finally said after the silence seemed to stretch on for eternity. Kurogane typically didn’t mind the silence, but this was a terrible feeling, a terrible silence. He was sick of silence between them. His brow furrowed and he huffed quietly, trying to collect his thoughts in order to say what he needed to say. 

“What’s there to understand?” Kurogane asked at last. Fuck this silence. 

Fay was quicker to answer now, seeming to have gotten a hold on his scurrying thoughts and translate them into more pathetic speeches. Kurogane was really sick of it now. He watched him breathe, in and out. He watched him swallow. Say, “Why did you do it? You should have…”

He thought he’d left this stupidity behind him. Though he’d left the stupidity rattling around in the mage’s skull back in Celes, with his stupid arm and his stupid sword. He’d thought wrong, apparently. There was still some self-hating and absolutely fucking moronic logic still battling it out inside the wizard’s skull. If Kurogane had both arms at his disposal, he’d be choking him right about now—as it were he’d probably just topple over and make a general fool out of himself. 

He sighed, for his grievances were so great. 

“I don’t care how much you tell me to let go,” he said quietly, staring straight ahead and refusing to look at the blonde. “I won’t.” 

Fay breathed in, his breath a wavering inhale in the silence that followed. He was shaking, and his one eye clenched shut. 

“Don’t you get that yet?” 

“I don’t… I…” Words failed him. Fay couldn’t summon the words he wished to say, couldn’t think of just what it was he should be saying to Kurogane, who stared straight ahead without an inch of remorse in his eyes. 

He had to look away and stared down at his clenched hands, fisted in the fabric of the kimono he wore. 

Another silence stretched on and Kurogane sighed in time with Fay’s in and out, in and out, breathing. Breathing. In and out. 

“I just… I don’t know,” Fay finally managed to say in a broken whisper. “Should I be crying now? Smiling? Laughing? I don’t know how I’m supposed to react.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Kurogane said lightly. 

“But it does!” Fay insisted, and his voice wavered again. He retreated, trying to regain some semblance of control. His hands gripped the fabric of his kimono tighter, his knuckles turning white. “You’ll… Why do you always have to…?” 

Kurogane said nothing as Fay struggled to speak.

“Why do you always do things like this…?” 

Kurogane’s eyes fell shut and he leaned against the wall where his futon was lined up with. For a moment, it seemed almost as if he’d gone back to sleep, with eyes shut and even breathing. Fay stared, struggled, before Kurogane said: 

“If you don’t know yet then you really haven’t been paying attention.” 

Fay choked and then cleared his throat, trying to cover up that slip up. He couldn’t. Not yet. 

“Maybe I have and I just…”

“If you have to ask, then you’re an idiot,” Kurogane repeated with a shrug of his good arm. He looked away again. 

“But I… It just… when you…” 

He babbled off into silence, his cheeks darkening for a short moment in his shame before he shook his head. 

Fay seemed to reign in some form of control, and his eyebrows slanted. 

“Hm, what’s this? I’m the one who’s supposed to be comforting Kuro-sama!” He smiled. 

Kurogane squinted at him. “You don’t have to do that.” 

“What? Comfort you?” Fay asked cheerfully. 

Kurogane stared at him. “Pretend. You don’t have to pretend.” 

Fay’s smile rippled away, replaced with a thoughtful look. “Ah. Yes. Old habits, I suppose.” 

There was a strained silence and Fay swallowed.

“Do you need anything?” 

Kurogane sighed and looked away again, his thoughts drifting but always centered around one thing—one person. And he didn’t try to knock that stupidity out of the mage’s head, deep down he supposed a portion of it would stay there forever. 

He could feel Fay’s gaze on the back of his head. But his red eyes only lowered and stared at his one hand. He raised it and ran it through his black hair, over his forehead, down his face, and he sighed and felt his breath puff back against his cheeks, warming them. 

“Water. I guess.” 

“Right,” Fay said and stood. As he did so, his fingertips brushed lightly over Kurogane’s remaining arm, and Kurogane wasn’t sure if that was intentional or not. “I’ll be back.” 

When he returned, he held a large cup of water. With some struggling, Kurogane managed to get the mage away from him long enough to drink water by himself. He would be damned if he let the mage cradle him—he wasn’t so decrepit now that he couldn’t even drink a fucking glass of water. 

He drank in silence. 

“I’m sorry,” Fay blurted out. 

Kurogane nearly choked on his water and looked at him in surprise.

Fay said again, with more control this time, “I’m sorry… for everything.” 

Fay felt like there was more to say, tried to think of how to say it, how to express how sorry he was to Kurogane. He bit his lower lip and tried to speak. 

Kurogane was staring at him, and stole his breath with a single look. Quietly, he said, “It’s fine.” 

“I just… for me why do you…?”

“We’ve been over this,” Kurogane said, annoyance rippling in his voice. 

A hesitant smile bloomed on Fay’s lips and he laughed quietly, a small pathetic reminder in the empty room. “I suppose so.” 

“…You’re…” Kurogane began. 

Fay blinked and looked at him. “Hm?”

“Nothing,” Kurogane said after a moment. 

Fay blinked in surprise, looking torn between letting it go and insisting that he be told. He sighed and pushed his long, blonde bangs away from his forehead, staring at the ceiling. 

“You’re impossible, Kuro-sama.” 

Kurogane grunted and finished his water, setting the cup down on the floor. 

Fay was about to say something more, but couldn’t find the words to say it. So they sat in silence. 

“…You’re worth it.” 

Fay’s eyes widened. “I…”

“To me, you’re worth it,” Kurogane muttered and looked away for a moment before forcing his face back towards Fay—their eyes locking for half a second before Fay looked away in disbelief. 

“How can you be sure? How can you measure the worth of a man?”

Kurogane stared at him, even if Fay refused to stare back. 

“You can’t,” Kurogane admitted. “But that doesn’t stop me from saying it, now does it?”

Fay laughed bitterly. “You really are an idiot, Kuro-sama.”

“It takes one to know one,” Kurogane snapped back.

In any other circumstance, Fay would have found it amusing that Kurogane just admitted he was an idiot, too. But somehow he couldn’t summon the energy to do so. He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair, looking unsure and uncomfortable. 

“But what if you’re making a mistake?”

“Fuck that,” Kurogane snapped. “You’re…”

He looked away, embarrassed. 

“I’m what?” 

“Don’t make me say it,” Kurogane muttered, and would have crossed his arms petulantly if he had both of them. His ears were turning an interesting hue of red. “I know you know it.”

Fay’s eyes twinkled for half a second. “Was Kuro-sama going to say that I’m important to him?”

“Shut up.”

“Hmmm,” Fay pretended to think. “Was Kuro-sama going to say that I’m his most important person?”

“There are many important people in my life,” Kurogane argued, looking annoyed. His eyebrows slanted downwards. 

“Of course. And it’s not wise to compare them,” Fay agreed as he leaned closer towards the ninja. Kurogane huffed at him. 

“You can’t compare,” Kurogane muttered, and Fay wasn’t sure if he meant that as a statement of actions for all people, or that he, himself, could not compare to anyone else.

“How romantic, Kuro-sama.”

“ _Shut up!_ I meant there’s nobody else on the planet who’s as damn aggravating and idiotic as you are,” Kurogane protested, and shifted on the bed as if he were to raise his fist to punch Fay, but thought better of it. There was nothing ferocious about falling backwards on a bed, and he suspected Fay would make a point to make fun of him if he did so. 

“Of course,” Fay said, laughing. 

Kurogane was quiet for a moment before saying, “They’re all important to me, okay? Each one of them is different, no more and no less important. Just different.” He looked over a Fay, his eyes holding a challenge, daring him to disagree. “You’re just different.” 

“…Kuro-sama.”

“So stop saying stupid, moronic things and get it through your head,” he finished. 

Fay blinked in surprise for half a second before his face melted into a softer expression. “…Kuro-sama.”

Kurogane had to look away, because his cheeks were turning pink again and damn it, the mage wasn’t supposed to treat him like this. A hand touched his cheek and the thumb traced his cheekbone for half a second before falling away.

“Kuro-sama,” Fay said again, “I always knew you were kind.” 

“Shut up,” he grunted. 

“And shy, too,” Fay said softly before leaning in and pressing his lips against Kurogane’s forehead. “Thank you.” 

He knew his face was red now and he muttered something to himself. Fay laughed, and it was genuine. 

“…Kuro-sama,” Fay said after a moment, brushing Kurogane’s fringe from his forehead. The man grunted and gave him a weary look. But Fay’s expression was gentle and almost peaceful. “I mean it. Thank you. For everything.” 

“Hn,” he muttered.

The hand was back, cupping the back of his head and tilting his face up so their eyes could meet. Fay leaned forward, his lips quirked into a gentle smile. 

“I’m happy.”

Kurogane stared at him incredulously for a moment, but he didn’t see any lie in his face. His cheeks were still red, but he felt his eyes soften as the words sunk in. 

“…Hn.” 

Fay’s breathy laugh filled the room and the hand on the back of his head pulled and their lips met for only half a second, but it was enough. Kurogane could feel the curve of the mage’s lips against his own and knew they were both smiling.


End file.
